Set Your Heart on Fire at Pop’s Glass Station

By Lauren Poster

Pop’s Glass Station, owned by Ed and Barbara Streeter, has been open in Conway since 2005. By their own count, they have been “blowing glass together for 15 years,” says Ed, as if they were just goofing off. As funny as that sounds, the married couple do just that every day, working together like the cogs in some astoundingly compact machine to create fine art with the ease of two chefs tossing pizzas. The shop is part art gallery, part classroom and part studio workspace, and the pair uses it to great effect. Formerly spending his days at Conway Glass, a commercial glass company that he still owns, Ed had the help of his father to open a stained glass studio in 1986. Known simply as “Pop,” the senior Streeter would watch the shop for Ed and Barbara while they were working during the day. When Barbara’s desire to have a more formalized art gallery came to fruition, they paid homage to the now late Pop, using his name and image as their shop hallmarks.

“Our logo is actually my father’s signature,” says Ed. Barbara adds, “He used to sign all the tools in his toolbox so that nobody else would take them.” This strikes one as charmingly juvenile, like the kid who writes his name in his underwear before going off to camp. But that childlike image goes away when Ed notes with deep respect that “[Pop] believed in having the best tool for any job he was going to do.” That professionalism (and that sense of fun) has translated to their studio.

It’s easy to see that Barbara and Ed are very comfortable together. “We feed off each other,” Barbara says when asked how they work. Who’s the more creative of the two? They both immediately point to the other and say “He is!” …”No, she is!” They both are, it seems. Barbara not only makes large pieces, which she says Ed is best at, she also makes unique colored beads over a small torch, a craft she learned at the Corning, N.Y. glass studio. She has taken classes under Sally Prasch, an expert in “lamp working,” to learn this art. Ed is proud of his wife’s productions and eager to show them off. Barbara is visibly artistic – even her haircut, a fresh-looking bob chopped into an asymmetrical shag on one side, betrays her quiet edge.

A series of three molten furnaces in the back of Pop’s flood the space with heat even on a 32-degree day in January. Ed, who seems to do most of the instruction to students, wields a long metal cane topped with a glowing orange orb at its end like the clown in a burlesque show. He is unafraid but respectful of the searing hot instrument of doom he holds, whirling and whirling it in circles of increasing circumference to shake out its length. “It’s all about turning, keeping it level, working with gravity,” says Barbara as she watches her husband. He points his noticeably un-charred hand at the still-hot glob as he rolls the pole over a flat surface to smooth a piece’s shape. I think of the half-crazy snake charmers and crocodile hunters seen on the Discovery Channel, who are also quick to find proximity with danger. But Ed is not careless, he is simply at ease.

“There’s a lot of science and chemistry involved in glass,” says Ed, speaking of coefficiencies and expansion rates and other things that fly over my head like the technicolor sparrows you see after getting hit in the face. This guy knows his stuff.

Tab Merritt and his wife Yvonne stop in with their three children and two nephews to view some of the work going on today. Tab is refreshed to see something like this happening locally and is interested in taking a class. “It’s good to see art in the area instead of going shopping all the time. It’s dynamite. We’ll definitely be back,” he says. Like many visitors to the shop, they are from Myrtle Beach. But today Ed and Barbara also have a class scheduled with Tom and Sharon Funderburk, who have driven from Columbia, S.C. to work with the pair. They are apparently determined to have this class. Sharon had driven down once before but due to power outages the furnace was down and her class couldn’t be completed. Impressed with what she saw, she was more than willing to come back. An artist herself, Sharon works in mixed media and mosaic and is interested in learning more about glass work. She stares serenely at the frightening vulcan pit and the giant, malleable bauble Ed is removing from its blinding innards. “It’s a big, hot Gummi Bear,” she jokes.

Ed and Barbara keep their gallery open Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and generally hold classes in the evenings Monday through Friday. Classes can be scheduled by appointment, however, and times are flexible. When they’re not teaching they’re doing, a rarity in this world of amateurs. Because of the heat of summer in the Myrtle Beach area, Ed and Barbara shut off the main furnace yearly between the end of May and September, using that time to hold small concerts, local and folk art shows, and participate in community events like the Conway Art Walk. The shop sells their glass work as well as photography, oil paintings, and more from area artists.

Right now and through the end of February, Ed and Barbara are teaching a Hearts Class designed for couples. Themed for Valentine’s Day, the class teaches people how to work together to create two heart-shaped keepsakes of their own, and costs $75 per couple. No strangers to love themselves, Ed and Barbara remember vividly when they met. “By the pool, July 5th, 1985 – about four in the afternoon. It was the Arcadian on Shore Drive. We went up to Ocean Annie’s and had daiquiris all afternoon. I never had a daiquiri before that,” Barbara says slyly.

Call Pop’s (843-248-4527), located at 911-A Norman Alley in Conway, for class times and more information on the Hearts Class and ongoing events at this a true local gem. Or hunk of glass ... or whatever it is!

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